Our audit of UK local authorities’ online consultation provision has found encouraging signs and room for improvement in almost equal measure.
The research, which we undertook between April and August this year, was designed to help UK Local Authorities see where they currently stand in comparison with one another, and where they could do better in the future.
Examples of the good-news-bad-news picture found by the audit include the fact that around 80% of local authorities do at least have a distinct webpage for presenting information on their consultation activities, but 40% have more than 50 accessibility errors in their consultation pages.
The audit report asserts that ‘there are a range of basics that all authorities can get right in order to ensure all residents and stakeholders can find out how to get involved, can find out more about the decisions being made and can have the opportunity to add their thoughts into the decision making process’.
Encouragingly, the report also concludes that many of the opportunities for improvement are low-hanging fruit – areas where relatively small, quick or inexpensive changes could make a big difference to performance. For example, existing consultation pages cannot be found through the search function of around 10% of authorities, a shortcoming that could be easily remedied.
The audit presents its national findings in anonymised form, providing an overall benchmark without ‘naming and shaming’ individual authorities (save for a few picked out as good examples for others to follow). However, a hard-copy report will be sent to each authority, setting out their own individual performance and ‘ten top tips’ for improving their online consultation and engagement.
Gez Smith, our senior consultant and the report’s author, said ‘we hope that by providing this information, we can help authorities to use the internet more effectively to involve their citizens in governance. We think the signs are there that things are moving in the right direction, and we’re keen to help councils across the UK improve even further’.
Follow this link to read the audit in full.
